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CAMPOBELLO 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 



BY 



KATE GANNETT WELLS 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/campobellohistorOOwell 



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CAMPOBELLO 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 

BY 
KATE GANNETT WELLS 



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Copy 1 



For those who are desirous of exact knowledge concerning the 
" Story of the Boundary Line," and the political history of Eastport 
and its vicinity, there is no more comprehensive work than that by 
William Henry Kilby, Esq., entitled, " Eastport and Passamaquoddy." 
To him, and also to two friends who kindly gave me the names of a 
few of the Island tiowers, do I express my gratitude. 



S'-^/^^f 



LaiT)pobello. 



— * — 

THE mysterious charms of ancestry and yellow parchment, of petitions 
to the admiralty and royal grants of land, of wild scenery and feudal 
loyalty, of rough living and knightly etiquette, have long clustered 
round a little island off the coast of Maine, called on the charts Passa- 
maquoddy Outer Island, but better known under the more pleasing name 
of Campobello. 

its Discovery. It belongs to the region first discovered by the 
French, who, under Sieur De Monts, in the spring of 1604, sailed along 
the shores of Nova Scotia, and gave the name of isle of Margos (mag- 
pies) to the four perilous islands now called The Wolves; beheld Manthane 
(now Grand Manan); sailed up the St. Croix; and established themselves 
on one of its islands, which they called the Isle of St. Croix. The severity 
of the winter drove them in the following summer to Annapolis, and for 
more than a hundred and fifty years little was known of this part of the 
country, though the River St. Croix first formed the boundary between 
Acadia and New England, and later the boundary between the Provinces 
of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts Bay. 

Campobello itself could scarcely be said to have a history till towards 
the end of the eighteenth century. Moose roamed over the swamps and 
looked down from the bold headlands ; Indians crossed from the mainland 
and shot them ; straggling Frenchmen, dressing in skins, built huts along 
the northern and southern shores, till civilization dawned through the 
squatter sovereignty of two men. Hunt and Flagg. They planted the 
apple trees whose gnarled branches still remain to tell of the winter storms 
that howled across the plains, and converted the moose-yards into a field 
of oats, for the wary, frightened animals vacated their hereditary land in 
favor of these usurpers. Their mercantile skill taught them how to use, 



6 

for purposes of trade rather than for private consumption, the shoals of 
fish which it was firmly believed Providence sent into the bay. 

Post Office. There were not enough inhabitants to justify the main- 
tenance of a post office till 1795 ; then the mails came once in two weeks. 
Lewis Frederic Delesdernier was the resonant, high sounding name of the 
first postmaster who lived at Flagg's Point (the Narrows). But when a 
post office was opened in Eastport, in 1805, this little Island one was 
abandoned, or rather it dwindled out of existence before the larger one 
established by Admiral Owen at Welsh Pool. 

Welsh Pool. The Narrows, because of its close proximity to the 
mainland, was a favorite place of abode in those early days. Yet Friar's 
Bay, two miles to the north, was a safe place for boats in easterly storms ; 
and thus, before the advent of the Owens, a hamlet had clustered around 
what is now called Welsh Pool. A Mr. Curry was the pioneer. The 
house opposite the upper entrance to the Owen domain was called Curry 
House until it became " the parsonage," a name abandoned when the 
present rectory was built. Curry traded with the West Indies, and owned, 
it is said, two brigs and a bark. 

People also gathered at the upper end of the Island, Wilson's Beach, 
and on the road between Sarawac and Conroy's Bridge, where there were 
several log houses. 

Garrison's Grandparents. That some kind of a magistrate or 
minister even then was on the Island is attested by the fact that William 
Lloyd Garrison's grandparents, Andrew Lloyd and Mary Lawless, chanced 
to come to Nova Scotia on the same ship from Ireland, and were married 
to each other "the day after they had landed at Campobello, March 30, 
177 1." Lloyd became a commissioned pilot at Quoddy, and died in 1813. 
His wife was the first person buried in Deer Island. Their daughter 
Fanny was Garrison's mother. 

Many of the early inhabitants were Tories from New York. Some 
were of Scotch origin, especially those who lived on the North Road. 

Captain Storrow. Among these settlers was a young British offi- 
cer. Captain Thomas Storrow, who, while he was prisoner of war, fell in 



love with Ann Appleton, a young girl of Portsmouth, N.H. In vain did 
her family object, " British officers being less popular then than now ; but 
young love prevailed," and the marriage, which took place in 1777, "was 
a happy one." Captain Storrow took his bride to England ; but after a 
while sailed for Halifax, where they remained " nearly two years." In 
1785 they went to St. Andrews. Through the courtesy of their grandson, 
Colonel Thomas W'entworth Higginson, the following extract is given from 
a manuscript sketch of the life of Mrs. Storrow, prepared by her niece, 
Mrs. Norman Williams : — 

False Sale. "Soon after this (1785) they removed to Campobello, 
which had been purchased by Mr. Butler and Captain Storrow. There 
were two houses on the Island, one for each family, and here they lived 
very happily and pleasantly. There was always a garrison at St. Andrews, 
and a ship of war stationed near Campobello ; so Captain Storrow had 
congenial society, and they had many p'easant lady friends, and, as their 
hospitality was unbounded, they were seldom without company at one or 
the other of the houses. . . . All was bright and prosperous. But a 
change came. In 1790 or 1791 the Butlers and Captain Storrow had 
gone to Halifax on business, and Mrs. Storrow was left alone with her 
children on the Island, when a notice was served to her that she must 
quit the Island immediately, as it had been sold to them under a false 
title, and the real owner had come to take possession. The Island had 
been granted by William Pitt to his former tutor, David Owen, a hard 
man who would not move from the position he had taken. Mrs. Storrow 
sent to my father, who was her husband's lawyer, and he, with some other 
gentlemen, chartered a sloop and brought the family to St. Andrews, where 
a house was already prepared for them. Here they remained a year or 
more. But Capt. Storrow's finances were so crippled by the loss of 
Campobello that he and his family sailed for Jamaica, where he had a 
small estate." 

WilHam Owen. David Owen, to whom this manuscript referred, 
was a cousin of William Owen, through whom the Island became con- 
nected by royal gift and by romance with the fortunes of his immediate 



i8 



descendants. As naval officer William Owen had been " in all the service 
and enterprise where ships, boats, and seamen were employed," had la- 
bored at Bengal for the re-establishment of the affairs of the East India 
Company, and had fought under Clive. At the blockade of Pondicherry 
he lost his right arm, and the Sunderland, to which he belonged, having 
foundered, he was ordered to England. Broken in spirit and weak in 
body, the copy of what was presumably his memorial to the Admiralty in 
1 76 1 has a piteous sound. It begins : 

His Petition. " My Lord, permit me, with the most profound re- 
spect, to lay by your Lordship a true State of my past service, with the 
accidents that happened to me during the same, praying your Lordship 
not to judge hard of me, in being reduced to the disagreeable necessity 
of domg that myself which would appear in a much more favorable light 
were any of my Friends in Town who could take the Liberty of Intro- 
ducing me to your Lordship." After recounting the services he rendered, 
and the injuries he received, he ends with these words : " I beg you will 
be pleased to represent to the Right Honorable the Lords of the Ad- 
miralty that I am the person mentioned in Admiral Steuen's [the spellin- 
IS illegible] Letter to have lost my Right Arm, when I had the Honor 0I 
Commanding one of the Divisions of Boats ordered by him to cut out the 
Two French Ships, La Baline and Hermione, from under the Guns of 
Pondicherry, on the 7th of October last, and that I had been wounded 
before in that country with a Musket Ball, which lodged in my Body 
above three years and a half. My long service in the East Indies to- 
gether with the Wounds I received, having greatly impaired my health 
lays me under a necessity to be the more urgent with you on this occasion' 
that I may the sooner go into the Country to endeavor to re-establish the 
same, as well as to see my Friends, from whom I have been above nine 
years absent. Let me, therefore. Sir, entreat you to move their Lordships 
in my behalf, humbly praying that they will be pleased to direct some- 
thing to be done for me, either by Gratuity, Pension, or Preferment, such 
as their Lordships may deem me to deserve." 



9 

Sir William Campbell. In November of the same year he writes 
to Lord William Campbell : "I arrived in London above four months 
ago. After long attendance and great solicitations, I am at length put 
off with a pitiful Pension, with which I am going to retire into the Coun- 
try among my Relations for the remainder of my days, unless somewhat 
unexpected happens to enable me to obtain the promotion I think I have 
a right to. ... I have spent a great deal of money in Town, have no 
Fortune, and want a sum soon on a very urgent Occasion. ... I hope, 
notwithstanding the disparity between us in point of Rank and Fortune, 
that j^our Lordship will honor me with a Continuance of the Friendship 
and Regard which I had reason to imagine subsisted between us during 
the five years we Messed together." 

This beseeching letter must have been effectual ; for in course of time 
he did receive, not only thanks and promise of promotion, but through the 
intercession of his friend. Sir William Campbell, who was Governor Gen- 
eral of Nova Scotia, he obtained possession of the Island which Hunt 
and Flagg had ruled. 

Royal Grant. As it embraced more land than could then be granted 
to one person, Owen induced others to join him in asking for the grant, 
that the whole Island might eventually be under control of the Owen 
family. 

Origin of Name. Consequently, in 1767, the Island was deeded 
to William Owen and his cousins, Arthur Davies, David and William 
Owen, Jr., who, in grateful compliment to Campbell, changed its name 
from Passamaquoddy Outer Island to Campobello, thus " punning on 
the donor's name, and also expressing the beauty of the natural scenery." 
It was like the Admiral to invent a name which should include both a 
joke and a subtle allusion to his classical learning. 

First Colony. William Owen immediately brought over from the 
mother country a colony of seventy persons ; stationed his ship at Havre 
De Lute, a Franco-Indian corruption of Harbor of the Otter ; and, having 
settled his people according to his liking, returned to England ; but soon 
left it again on public service, and died with the rank of Admiral. 



10 

David Owen. David Owen acted as agent for the grantees, and 
was a veritable lord of the Island, always interested in protecting 
the fisheries. His house, near the site of the cottage now owned by 
James Roosevelt, Esq., had even more roof than the usual sloping, 
barn-like home of former days. He built a rude church, read the 
service, and preached. What matter if the sermon was oft repeated, or 
now and then was original ! Could not he, though a layman, best tell 
the needs of his congregation ? He played the fiddle for dances, 
married the people, scolded them as a self-constituted judge, and kept 
a journal of Island events in microscopic chirography. He was an 
occasional correspondent of the " Eastport Sentinel " on matters of British 
history and theological controversy. " He had a fine library of old books, 
and was well versed in scholastic subjects," said Dr. Andrew Bigelow, the 
first Unitarian minister of Eastport, who often visited him. 

To " Hue and Cry." Once David Owen committed to the gaol in 
St. Andrews a Frenchman, for "feloniously taking and carrying away 
some fish from flakes at Campobello." As the offender went on his way 
to gaol in his own vessel, he threw overboard the deputy sheriff who ac- 
companied him, drew his dirk on the other man and compelled him to 
follow, and then escaped himself with his own vessel. Therefore, Owen 
advertised in the " Sentinel " of September 25, 1819, " To all officers and 
others to whom the execution hereof may belong ... to search for the 
said Appleby [the Frenchman], and therefore to ' hue and cry ' after him 
as the law directs." Signed " D. Owen, J. P." 

When David died he left his share of the land to William Owen, Jr. 
This younger Owen sold Campobello, which had now come into his sole 
possession, to William Fitz-William, who, as the natural son of the Owen 
of Pondicherry fame, could obtain possession only through purchase of 
his father's grant. 

Primitive Life. Island life was still very primitive. The people 
raised stock, and the creatures fed on the wild grass and young hemlock. 
But, as David had freely deeded the land to the settlers, the underbrush 
was soon killed off and stock raising ceased. The Campobellians also 



11 

proved no exception to the rule that agriculture is seldom a favorite occu- 
pation with those who can support themselves by the precarious life of 
fishermen, even if that has its perils. 

Illness. Here, too, as everywhere in pioneer life, the women suffered 
as much as, if not more than, the men. When sickness came upon them 
they endured it patiently, with that kind of meek despair which looks upon 
illness either as fate or as the will of the Lord. Fortunately for them, a 
young girl, who had been born on the Island, became at sixteen a skilful 
nurse. She was sought from far and near, and taken out at night when 
she had to be blindfolded on account of the storms. The description of 
one of her visits must be given in her own words, as she told it when she 
was eighty-four : — 

The Indian's Squaw. " Once I and my husband were abed a 
howling night, and I heard a knock. Says I, ' Jim, I bet that's for me ; 
get up and see.' And I sorter guessed it was a foreigner. And he came 
back and says, ' P. (that's what he called me, short for Parker), it's an 
Indian from down on the Narrows ; and he's been for the doctor, and he's 
down at Robinson, and won't be fetched 'cause he's having a good time.' 
So I got up and dressed and went down with him ; for the squaw's skin 
was as dear to her husband as a white woman's is to her, and her heart 
may be just as good to God. And when I got there I saw two squaws, 
and one was all in a heap ; and they made eyes at me, and I didn't know 
whether it meant murder or not, only I guessed not. And I says, ' Sister, 
what is it ? ' And she says, her husband tell her ' white doctor no come. 
You white woman come and make his squaw live.' So I went to work. 
And when all was right, they wanted me to take a blanket and lie down ; 
but I could no way make believe Indian, so I sits up till morning. Then 
the Indian asked me what he should give me ; and I told him my gineral 
price was three dollars, but when folks was no better off than I, I turned 
in and asked nothin'. And he says, ' We give five dollars if it's a girl, 
and three dollars if it's a boy.' ' Well,' I says, ' sure enough it's a boy ' ; 
and I come home. And next day he travels down here [to the Pool], and 
says me better than man doctor, and wished he could give me twenty 
dollars." 



12 

Some sixty years after this incident had occurred, when Mrs. Parker 
was driven up to the Narrows where the squaw had lived, and past the 
Tyn-Y-Coed and cottages, that she might see the changes which time had 
wrought, she exclaimed, " As the Bible says, now I can die in peace, for 
mine eyes have seen the salvation, I will not say of the Lord, but of 
Campobello." 

The Admiral. The salvation, such as it was, came slowly; at first 
through Admiral William Fitz-William Owen. His life was curious and 
pathetic, from the time when a boy five years old, an inmate of the ar- 
tillery barracks, he replied, on being asked his last name, " I don't know, 
mother can tell you," to his old age, when, dressed in admiral's uniform, 
he paced back and forth on a plank walk, built out into the bay, over the 
high cliffs of the shore, in memory of the quarter deck of his beloved 
ship. Conceited and religious, authoritative and generous, humorous and 
ceremonious, disputatious and frank, a lover of women more than of wine, 
his fame still lingers in many a name and tradition. 

His Growth. When very young, a friend of his father's took him 
away from the barracks and from his mother, of whom he never again 
heard. He was boarded and punished in various homes in North Wales, 
but as recompense wore a cocked hat and a suit of scarlet made from an 
old coat of his father, — " the first sensible mark of the earthly pre-exist- 
ence of some one who claimed to be my father " he had ever, received, 
wrote the Admiral, in his later days. He learned the catechism and col- 
lects, repeated the Lord's prayer on his knees, and thought of raising the 
devil by saying it backwards ; but he never completed the charm, and for 
four or five years after was self-punished by his fear that the devil was 
waiting for him at the church door. 

By degrees he learned something of his father, the William Owen of 
Pondicherry fame, who had died while he was a baby. When about four- 
teen he went to a mathematical academy, where his " progress was as re- 
markable as it had before been in classics." Here religious instruction 
consisted in going to church " to talk with our fingers to the girls of a 



13 

school who used the adjoining pew." As a boy, he "had do other distinct 
idea of our Lord Jesus Christ than that he was a good man." 

His Dreams. His belief in the direct interposition of the Creator 
on his behalf frequently solaced him in these youthful days of loneliness 
and misdemeanor. The literal and instant fulfillment of two dreams on 
special and unthought-of subjects were convincing proof, to quote his own 
words, that " they were sent by God Almighty himself, as a simple way 
of assuring me that as I was under his eye he would himself take care 
of me." 

Man=of=War Garden. So he grew up to be presumptuous, adven- 
turous, resolute, and strong. In 178S he became a midshipman in a line- 
of-battle ship, in due course of time cruising in the Bay of Fundy. For 
three 5^ears his man-of-war was stationed at Campobello. The crew often 
went ashore in summer, tending a little garden at Havre de 'Lutre (Harbor 
of the Otter), called Man-of-War Garden, which in turn gave its name 
to the headland. The garden was brilliant with dahlias and marigolds, 
which were presented in overweighted bouquets to the few Island belles, 
who, in return for such unexpected courtesies, consented in winter to 
dance on the ship's deck, regardless of their frozen ear-tips. Two of the 
midshipmen were as dauntless in pedestrianism as in love, and for a wager 
started on a perilous walk around icy cliffs which threw them headlong. 
Their comrades buried them under the gay flowers, and sailed away from 
the henceforth ill-omened garden. And the little store near by, kept by 
one Butler, lost its customers and passed into tradition. 

The Boy as Midshipman. With Owen's entrance into the naval 
service as boy officer "commenced," he wrote in later years, "a public life 
which may be said to have had no sensible intermission until the close of 
1 83 1, or forty-three years, during which I have served under every naval 
man of renown, and was honored by the friendship of Nelson. From the 
year 1797 I have held commands and been entrusted with some important 
service, for the most part in remote parts of the world. My character, if 
I may be allowed to draw it myself, contained much of good and bad. 
The latter, perhaps, I contrived to veil sufficiently not to mar my reputa- 



14 

tion ; but, by the grace of God, he has not left me without his spirit of 
self-conviction. ... At forty-four I married [a Miss Evans, of Welsh ex- 
traction]. I thought myself a tolerably religious man, but knew myself 
to be as Reuben, unstable as water. At fifty-seven my vvorldly ambition 
was barred by corruption in high places. At sixty-one I became the 
♦ Hermit' " 

His Settlement at Campobello. " The Quoddy Hermit," — this 
was the name he chose when, with the rank of admiral, he came back to 
Campobello to live. He brought with him building material and the 
frame of a house taken from Rice's Island, and erected his habitation 
where is now the Owen. In the grove at the northern end of the present 
hotel he planted two or three English oaks. He placed the sun dial of 
his vessel in the garden fronting his house, and put a section of his be- 
loved quarter deck close to the shore, not far from the seedling oaks. 
There, pacing up and down in uniform, he lived over again the days of 
his attack upon the Spanish pirate. Proud as he was of the two cannon 
he then captured, there is no one living to tell who bled or who swore, or 
whether the Spanish galleon sank or paid ransom. He placed the cannon 
on the Point, where they bid defiance to American fishing boats. In later 
years one was taken to Flagstaff Hill whenever a salute was to be given 
in honor of the Queen's birthday, or a fish fair, for such fairs were 
famous. 

Weddings. The population of the Island increased, and the old 
man married the boys and girls at church or at home, slowly or hastily, as 
his humor bade him, always claiming the first kiss of the bride. A cer- 
tain sailor who had wooed a Campobello maiden was determined that this 
privilege should not be allowed by her, and therefore tried to salute his 
bride before the service was ended. "You are not married yet. Back! " 
shouted the Admiral, Frightened, the sailor-groom turned his face and 
his feet toward the minister-magistrate, who more and more slowly repeated 
the words of the service, as he approached nearer to the lady, till, with 
the last word, he snatched the first kiss. His most princely gift as a wed- 
ding present is said to have been the Island of Pope's Folly, a present 



15 

conditioned on his performance of the marriage service, which was gladly 
granted by the bride. 

He widened the narrow roads along the bay, which David had broken 
out, and in his heavy, lumbering coach of state went through snow and 
mud from one tenant to another. The coach is still to be seen, and the 
tenants' grandchildren bear the Owen surname as the universal Christian 
cognomen. The Admiral would often stroll down to Whale-Boat Cove, — 
so called from a large kind of row-boat used in the herring fisheries, — 
which he persuaded the men to call Welsh Pool. Many a little maiden 
counted her pennies by the Admiral's kisses, and many a poor fisherman 
blessed him for allowing the house rent to run on from year to year, 
though the Admiral invariably insisted on the rental from the weirs ; he 
well knew which was the more profitable. 

Family Life. On other days he stayed at home and amused him- 
self with his books. At four o'clock the husband and wife dined with the 
family and the frequent guests. The dinner of four courses was served 
in silver and gold lined dishes, with wines from Jersey and game from the 
Provinces. Silver candelabras shone upon the ,table ; damask and India 
muslin curtains shaded the many paned windows ; heavy mahogany and 
rosewood chairs, sofas, and tables furnished the apartments ; great logs 
on tall andirons burned in monster fireplaces ; sacred maps hung around 
the evening parlor ; and the dining-room carpet was said to have been a 
gift from the King of Prussia. The long curved mahogany sofa, the 
carved chairs, and other pieces of furniture are now owned by the Islanders. 
The library table and arm chair, with sockets in its arms for candles, the 
Admiral's hat, pistols, and picture are carefully treasured by " The Com- 
pany " as relics. 

After the dinner of an hour came tea at seven and a family rubber 
till nine ; then Scripture reading and worship, when the ladies and servants 
retired, leaving the Admiral and his gentlemen friends, fortified with cigars, 
whiskey, and water, to relate naval stories and discuss religious themes till 
two or three o'clock in the morning;. 



16 

Theology. Owen's three chosen intimates were designated Aca- 
demicus, Rusticus, and Theophilus. His library, which they frequently 
consulted, was a sad medley of dictionaries and the theology of Oxford 
divines. Methodism and Romanism were alike hateful to the hermit 
Admiral, who, in quoting from Holy Writ, always rendered "the wiles" 
as "the methodisms " of the devil. Every week he read to his neighbors 
two lectures " from unexceptionable sources, yet so modified as to contain 
all that was expedient to explain of his peculiar opinions." Often he held 
church service in what was almost a shanty, omitting from the liturgy 
whatsoever he might chance to dislike on any special Sunday. 

Family Prayers. The day began and ended with prayers, which 
all the household servants attended, the "maids," as the Admiral called 
them, — "for we are all servants of God," — bringing their work and sew- 
ing throughout the service, except when the prayer itself was said. If 
some one occasionally was disinclined to such steady improvement of the 
devotional hour, the Admiral, with a benevolent smile, inquired, " My 
dear, do you feel lazy to-night .'' " 

Breakfast was served at nine. After that, the Lady Owen, clad in an 
'enormous apron, entered the kitchen and taught the mysteries of salads 
and jellies. 

Lady Owen. Lady Owen was queen as he was king; and never 
did a lady rule more gently over store-room and parlor, over Sunday-School 
and sewing-school, fitting the dresses of her domestics or of the Island 
children. She was a handsome woman, with silver hair and pink and 
white complexion, who, like her daughters, wore long trains and low 
corsages. Sometimes the mother wrapped herself in a certain gold and 
black scarf with such a courtly grace that its remembrance has never 
faded. Great was the jubilee among the domestics when a box arrived 
from England, with fabulous dresses ready made. 

Once a year the maids and men of the great house had a ball, the 
ladies playing for them even all night. Twice in the twelve months oc- 
curred house-cleaning, when a dress was given each busy worker. The 
servants were often reminded to take no more than was necessary on their 



plates ; for economy, though not parsimony, was the rule of the house. 
Guests came from the mainland and from every vessel of war. Admiral 
Owen and his house were the fashion for many long years. 

Nowhere on the coast of Maine has there been a more curious ming- 
ling of rank, with its investiture of ceremony, and of simple folk-life, of* 
loyalty to the Queen and her representatives and of the American spirit 
of personal independence. 

Theatricals. All the people were familiar with the great family, 
while the better part of them were bidden to theatrical performances, for 
which the Admiral composed songs. It is doubtful whether he chose as 
early hours for his amateur shows as did the theatre manager of New 
Brunswick; for on the first occasion of a dramatic performance in that 
Province, March, 28, 1789, the doors were opened at half-past five and 
the play began at half-past six o'clock. 

Other merry-makings occurred on the Island, justified, perhaps, by 
the occasional homage of gifts sent to the mother country ; for the Ad- 
miral's diary bears record that " three large, eleven middle, and fourteen 
small, masts were hoisted on board a vessel, and sent as a tribute to 
England." Then, whenever a roof-raising occurred, he knew how to send 
the children home to look after the chores, that their elders might join in 
the merriment. 

Smugglers' Cave. The inhabitants themselves were rather enter- 
prising in business ; for rum and lumber were exchangeable quantities 
with the venturesome Campobello captains, who traded with the southern 
ports and West Indies, and carried Nova Scotia grindstones to the States. 
Bolder, but the quieter in action, were the smugglers, who, deep amid the 
woods, near the only fresh-water pond of the Island, alternately came and 
vanished. Much of their spare time was spent in digging for an iron 
chest of Spanish doubloons, buried by ancient buccaneers. The Admiral 
and his family often rode through the woods to watch the men in their 
hopeless work, and to obtain their share of treasure-trove if ever it were 
found. One bright morning every digger had fled, leaving a deep excava- 
tion in the ground ; but far down on its side, marked out by the iron rust 



18 

which had clung to the earth, the outlines of a chest were visible. A cart 
track and the ruins of four or five huts are all that now remain of the site 
of this mysterious activity. With the departure of these smugglers dis- 
appeared the steady excitement of years, the perpetual topic of conversa- 
tion. Thereafter the people could only question each other about the 
strange wreck whose rotting timbers were old a century before. Its last 
remnants have now been carved into love tokens. 

Saddest were the days when the Admiral strode up and down his 
imaginary quarter-deck, his empire a fishing settlement, where boys' wages 
had once been three cents a day. Eastport still owned the islands around 
it. The people brought in their fish, and sold it for groceries and other 
articles at stores where it was credited to them. The little vessels cross- 
ing the bay made it gay for the Admiral's eyes. But his spirit sank, 
as he fancied that some boat might be drifting around an inlet, with its 
owner frozen to the mast amid the supplies he was bringing to his family, 
who were waiting in vain for the father to return ; or as he thought of the 
burden of this ever-increasing debit and credit system, or of the perils of 
the smugglers. 

Later, when the duties were taken off by the United States, smug- 
gling disappeared, and Campobello business went down. Could it ever 
have been said to exist ? A few persons possessed enough ready money 
to build the picturesque weirs which fringe the Island with their stakes, 
driven three or four feet apart, and ribboned together with small round 
poles. The dried foliage and the dripping seaweed clinging to them give 
a ghastly beauty to this living mausoleum of the herring. 

The Bank. Remittances did not always come promptly from Eng- 
land, and money was needed in the Island ; so the Admiral set up his own 
bank, and issued one-dollar certificates, surmounted by the crest and his 
motto, " Flecti non Frangi." But somehow the time never came when he 
was called upon " to pay one dollar on demand to the bearer at Welsh 
Pool," and the certificates remain, to be utilized, perhaps, under a new 
epoch of good will and foolish trust. 



19 

Titles. The Island must have had some law and order before the 
advent of the Admiral, for the town records for the parish of Campobello 
date from April 15, 1824, James M. Parker, town clerk. At the general 
session of the peace, holden at St. Andrews, the shire town of Charlotte 
County, New Brunswick, thirty-two officers were chosen for the small 
population of Campobello. As in the old German principalities, every 
Welsh Pooler must have craved a title. There were commissioners and 
surveyors of highways, overseers of poor and of fisheries, assessors, trustees 
of schools, inspectors of fish for home consumption and for exports, for 
smoked herring and boxes. There were cullers of staves, fence-viewers 
and hog-reeves, and surveyors of lumber and cordwood, lest that which 
should properly be used for purposes of building or export be consumed 
on andirons or in kitchen stoves. 

Paupers. In those days there was no poorhouse ; though town pau- 
pers existed, for one, Peter Lion by name, was boarded about for one 
hundred dollars, and furnished with suitable food, raiment, lodging, and 
medical aid. No one kept him long at a time, whether it was because 
others wanted the price paid for his support, or because he was an un- 
welcome inmate, is unknown. Prices depend on supply ; therefore, it 
happened that the next pauper was boarded for fifty dollars. Again, a 
lower price for board brought about a lower tax rate for the householders ; 
and, in course of time, another pauper was set up at public auction, and 
the lowest bidder was entrusted with his care and maintenance. 

By 1829 the exports from the Island justified the creation of harbor 
masters and port wardens,^ — more titles to be coveted. 

Ferryman. A ferry was established from Campobello to Indian 
Island and Eastport. The ferryman was " recognized in the sum of two 
pounds, and was conditioned to keep a good and sufficient boat, with 
sails and oars, to carry all persons who required between the appointed 
places, to ask, demand, and receive for each person so ferried one shilling 
and three pence, and no more." If any other than the appointee should 
have the hardihood to make a little money by transporting a weary travel- 
ler, such persons should be fined ten shillings, half of it to go to the 



20 

informer and half to the ferryman, unless he had previously arranged with 
the licensee that he would afford him due and righteous satisfaction for 
each person so carried. 

As the population grew, the swine began to abound, and soon it was 
decreed that " neither swine nor boar-pig should go at large, unless suffi- 
ciently ringed and yoked, sucking pigs excepted, on pain of five shillings 
for each beast." 

Sheep. Then the sheep began to jump fences four feet high,— and 
their descendants have increased in agility. They ate the young cabbages, 
and standing at ease, defiantly and lazily nipped off the dahlia buds. 
The town bestirred itself. Angry housewives, roused from their sleep by 
waking dreams of depredations committed, drove the sheep away with 
stock and stone. The following night the fisher-husbands, back from 
their business, sallied forth in vain ; they could not run as fast as the 
women. And week after week the sheep took all they wanted. It be- 
came necessary finally to establish the sublime order of hog-reeves, who 
were privileged to seize any swine or sheep going at large which were not 
marked with the proper and duly entered mark of the owner, and to prose- 
cute as the law directs ; all cattle being ordered to be at home by eight 
o'clock in the evening. But how could sheep be marked when their fleece 
forbade their being branded .'' As notable housekeepers vie with each 
other in receipts, so did each Islander try to invent striking deformities 
for his sheep ; only the sucking lambs retained their birthrights till their 
later days. Because Mulholland made two slits in the right ear and took 
off its top, Parker cut off a piece from the left ear of his sheep, and 
Bowers made a crop under the left ear of his animal, close to its head. 
Yet the sheep ran loose until the people were directed to raise twelve 
pounds for building two cattle pounds, and William Fitz-William Owen, 
the Admiral, was appointed to erect the same. 

The poor rates had again lessened,— woe to the pauper boarder, — 
for the Admiral wanted money for many another improvement on 
which his mind was bent. The General Sessions of the peace dared not 
neglect any suggestion which was made by a man who entertained all the 



distinguished guests who came to Passamaquoddy Bay ; for his fame had 
spread far and wide as host, theologian, and magnate. 

Geese. If it were difficult to restrain sheep and swine, still more 
difficult was it to prevent the trespasses of geese ; though many a bird 
was clipped in its infancy, and in winter killed and put down amid layers 
of snow, and sent to the Admiral as a peace offering or as tribute. 

Still the public troubles increased ; until it was ordered that horses 
and cattle should be impounded. Then peace by midnight and safety by 
day rested over the Island. For it was even resolved "that all dogs of 
six months old and upward should be considered of sufficient age to pay 
the tax " ; but in what manner they were compelled to offer their own ex- 
cuse for being remains unsolved. Perhaps no legal quibble was ever 
raised concerning the wording of the statute. 

Bridges. Admiral Owen was not only the magistrate for animals, 
but a builder of bridges, letting out the work "at the rate of $1.12 !< per 
man per day, the clay being ten hours of good and conscientious work for 
man or yoke of oxen." 

Nomination Day. Very graphic is an account of " Nomination 
Day," given by Mr. William H. Kirby, in the " Eastport Sentinel " of 
June 10, 1885. On the results of this day depended honors and duties. 
" Four members are to be chosen. Among those put in nomination is 
the Honorable Captain William Fitz-VVilliam Owen, of Campobello, rep- 
resentative of the Island and champion of the fisheries. 

A poll being demanded, the real contest is postponed to a later day ; 
starting at St. Andrews, and proceeding from parish to parish, gathering 
the votes of each neighborhood, until at the end of a fortnight Indian 
Island is reached, and the voters of West Isles and Campobello have 
their turn. This affords a good opportunity for curious Eastporters to 
look in upon the time-honored election processes of the British Empire. 

The surroundings of the hustings are rude and characteristic. On 
a platform made by spreading a plank on the top of fish hogsheads the 
sheriff' of the county has established himself, with his clerks, the candi- 
dates and their representatives ranged along. As this is Captain Owen's 



own precinct, special efforts have been made to bring up his vote, which 
has somewhat lagged in other parishes ; some of the free and independent 
electors, arriving by the numerous boats which line the beach, wear badges 
with the motto, " Owen Roads and Bridges," and there are signs that 
open houses are kept somewhere in the neighborhood. With staunch 
friends, the Captain has bitter opponents. For the purpose of increasing 
the income from his Island, he had not long before established a system 
of pasturage which included a small annual sum for geese, and it is said 
that at St. Andrews the other day a goose was borne aloft in derision of 
his candidacy. 

Each candidate having urged his claims in an address, the polls are 
opened and the voting begins. As the elector comes forward, he is asked 
for whom he votes. The reply is, " Captain Owen," — "Thank you, sir," 
from Captain Owen ; and the same from Mr. Hill, Mr. Brown, Mr. Boyd, 
Mr. Clinch, or some other candidate, in response to a vote for either. 
And the clerk enters the several votes upon his record. Each elector can 
vote for four candidates. Sometimes he names but one ; this is a plumper, 
and elicits cheers. Sometimes a man is asked on what he votes, and re- 
plies " Freehold by heir," or something else. I believe that under certain 
conditions a man could vote in half a dozen counties if he had property. 

Closing here, the sheriff, candidates, and special friends adjourn to 
St. Andrews for the final proceedings. Numbers of votes have been with- 
held for eft'ective use in the final struggle. Some of the candidates are al- 
ready so far ahead that their success is assured, and others are hopelessly 
behind, while for one or more places two or three candidates are separated 
by only narrow margins, and this affords opportunity for trades and com- 
binations which add zest to the last spasmodic efforts. Captain Owen 
was not successful this time, though he was chosen at a later campaign, 
and was afterwards promoted to a seat in Her Majesty's Council for the 
Province." 

Wilson's Claim. The Admiral's life was embittered by the obstin- 
acy with which some of the people refused to pay him allegiance. They 
were the descendant's of one Wilson, who, in David's time, had squatted 



at Head Harbor, and had built across the end of the Island a bush fence, 
which was considered to give the sanctity of a written deed to Wilson's 
claim. David Owen contested the validity of custom, and a lawsuit fol- 
lowed, which was decided in favor of the squatter. This decision was 
very embarrassing to David, who feared that through its effect he might 
lose possession of another neck of land. So he hastened home from the 
court, outstripping his rival, and told a squatter who lived on a second 
point of the Island that, as the verdict in the Head Harbor case had been 
rendered in the Owen favor, he had better sell out at once, or else the law 
would make him do so. This reasoning, though illogical, was convmcing ; 
and the terrified fisherman is reported to have made a lawful deed of his 
possessions to David for a round of pork, an old gun, and two or three 
other articles, \^'hen Wilson arrived, belated by the wind and tide, the 
fraud or joke was discovered ; but, as no remedy was found for it, the 
Owens ruled all the Island, except the peninsula which David and his co- 
heirs and successors always called " Wilson's Encroachment." There Wil- 
son and his followers established a thriving settlement, whose prosperity was 
a constant grievance to the Admiral when he came to live at Campobello. 
Neither flattery or bribery could induce them to become his vassals. 
Years after, in the American Civil War, when Captain Robinson, the 
Admiral's son-in-law, demanded that rents should be paid in English 
money, Campobello was impoverished, while the people at Wilson's Beach 
had no rent to pay. 

The Cannon. The cannon still remained as sentinels, till some one 
on board the brig Sam French, which was going to California for gold, 
stole them and carried them round Cape Horn. When the brig reached 
San Francisco it fired a salute ; but as the Admiral had forewarned the 
Southern authorities of the capture of his guns, the timely or untimely 
salute betrayed their presence, and the guns were seized and returned to 
Campobello. After the removal of the Owen family to England, one of 
the guns, which had been bought from them by Mr. Best, an Island resi- 
dent at that time, was given by him to General Cleaves, who placed it on 
one of the islands in Portland harbor, where two or three years ago it 



•24 

exploded and was shattered to pieces. The other gun was bought by 
George Batson, Esq., and was placed in his store on the Island, where it 
became an object of wonder to all newcomers. 

Schools. The official dignities of the Admiral increased with his 
longer residence on Campobello. He was overseer of the poor, post- 
master, and school trustee. For a long period there were only private 
schools ; but about fifty years ago the first public or parish school was 
built near the Taylor House, now Hotel Byron. Four other schools were 
established at various points ; one at Curry's Cove, or Sarawac, — so 
named by Admiral Owen after a fishing hamlet in Wales,— where Lady 
Owen and her daughters maintained a vigorous Sunday School. 

The Mail. The mails, which were brought by vessel from St. An- 
drews, came twice a week in summer, and once a week in winter ; though 
it was no uncommon event to wait three weeks for a letter, if the weather 
were stormy. The people from Indian and Deer Islands came to the 
Admiral's to get their letters ; but woe to any one who chanced to arrrive 
too early in the morning, before the noble postmaster had finished his 
breakfast. 

Survey Book. A curious manuscript book with parchment covers 
is still extant, labelled on one side, " Register Book, Deeds, Leases, etc., 
for the estate of Campobello. The Iproperty of Captain W. F, W. Owen, 
R. N. June, 1835." On the other side is written, "Survey Book." It 
contains several early survey maps of the National Boundary, of the 
Narrows at Campobello, and of Casco Bay. There are also leases of 
smoke-houses and weirs. The latter then rented for fifty or sixty dollars 
a year, and a system of ground-rent prevailed. The Admiral could not 
have anticipated much income from his possessions ; for he speaks of the 
people as " fishermen, about four hundred in number, very few of whom 
are, I fear, able to please turn over to pay rent otherwise than in produce, 
— that is, dried fish and potatoes." 

Tyn-Y-Coed. In this same record book he writes that the farm 
called Tyn-Y-Coed, or The House in the Woods, is so named from " the 
estate in Montgomery shire, late of Owen Owen, Esq., and Sir Arthur 



Davies Owen, his son, and William Owen, the youngest son, let to John 
Gregg, for ten years on his life, at the rate of (6}4s.) six shillings and six- 
pence." On the oldest map owned by the present Company, drawn by 
one John Wilkinson, in 1830, the Tyn-Y-Coed and also Lake Glen Severn 
are designated. The land opposite the Tyn-Y-Coed, where now is the 
Wells Cottage, used to be called Mount Pleasant. 

The Admiral's domains extended beyond Campobello to Head Har- 
bor, Pope's Folly, Sandy, Spruce, and Casco Islands. Since his reign 
some of these islands have been sold, while Casco Island was given to 
Chief Justice Allen, of New Brunswick, by Lady Owen. When the little 
fishing vessels and ferry boats, which ply between these islands, and the 
big schooners and large steamers, are now counted on any one summer 
day, it is difficult to realize how comparatively uncrossed were these waters 
in the Admiral's early years of Island life. 

First Steamboat. The first steamboat in New Brunswick was not 
launched till April, 18 16, and then it went only as far as Portland; and a 
second steamer was not added till 1825. The first New Brunswick news- 
paper fortunately was issued in 1783, so that it must have been able to 
announce this new maritime project with due sensational headlines. 

First Telegram. Not until April 30, 1851, was the first telegram 
sent from St. John to John Wilson. Curiously reads his answer from St. 
Andrews : " Being the first subscriber to the Electric Telegraph Company, 
I am honored by the first communication from your city announcing the 
great and wonderful v.'ork God has made known to man by giving us 
the control of the lightnings." 

The Church. Neither steamboat, newspaper, nor telegram could 
make Campobello aught but a narrow confine for the social and political 
ambition of the Admiral. An exile because of poverty that compelled 
him to accept the royal gift, he felt that he must devote himself to con- 
troversial discussion and the erection of a new Episcopal church. Before 
this day the people had been Baptists ; personal loyalty anglicized the 
religion of all those around. Welch Pool. 



26 

Wilson's Baptists. The people at Wilson's, however, never aban- 
doned their Baptist tenets, which they brought with them from the neigh- 
boring islands as they settled around Head Harbor. Those along the 
North Road rowed over to the larger settlement for baptisms and Sunday 
services, which were first held in the schoolhouse, for the church itself 
was not built until some thirty-eight years ago. 

North Road Baptists. At last the North Road residents had their 
own church, to which they were devotedly attached. The land for it cost 
forty dollars in gold paid down to Captain Robinson, as the proceeds of 
the efforts of sewing-circles and ladies' teas. The great Saxby gale of 
some twenty-five years ago blew it down. Two years after it was rebuilt 
for $447, and finally finished ten years ago. The devoted Episcopalians 
at Welch Pool have made no greater sacrifices for their church than did 
the little band of zealous North Road Baptists. Though their regular 
ministers have been few, their irregular preaching and their prayer meet- 
ings have been constant. 

Still it was but natural that, as the boys of the Baptist islands mar- 
ried the girls of St. George and other New Brunswick towns where the 
Church of England was the prescribed form of faith, Episcopalianism 
spread itself, not only among the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, but at 
Campobello. 

Church Corporation. Soon after Admiral Owen had become resi- 
dent magistrate and commissioner for solemnizing marriages, to which the 
witnesses as well as the bridal couple signed their names, he signalized 
his authority by giving for three years certain wild lands as commons for 
cattle to those who should belong to the " Church Episcopal Congrega- 
tion," when formed. The lease was duly signed by himself and by John 
Farmer, in trust for the people. Such privilege, even if actuated by 
worldly motives, proved of sacred benefit, for measures were immediately 
taken to form a Church Association and corporation, with the proviso that 
such persons as had decided objections to profess themselves members of 
the church could by no means become a part of such corporation. The 
Admiral's cattle ranged free in the commons, but on all other licensed and 



27 

marked cattle were paid the fees which accrued to the benefit of religion, 
and large must have been the income thereof. 

The regularly ordained preacher was sent from St. Andrews but four 
or five times a year. On all other appointed days the Admiral read his 
beloved service, even till 1842, when a resident missionary came to live 
on the Island. Thirteen years after, in 1855, the church and burial 
ground were consecrated by the bishop of the diocese. Most solemn and 
tender must have been those first rites, when confirmation was adminis- 
tered to three persons, and holy communion to forty others, in that little 
building surrounded by the dark balsamic firs, looking with its cross over 
the waters toward the New England steeples. 

English friends sent money to the church, and the Owen family gave 
memorial offerings. The reredos, with its silver cross, was a memorial 
to Captain John Robinson, the grandson of the Admiral. The block of 
stone from which the font was carved was taken from the Church of the 
Knights Templar at Malta, and carried to Florence by the Admiral's son- 
in-law to be wrought into graceful form, and then was borne across the 
ocean to this tiny, much loved church. The chancel carpet, worked on 
canvas in cross-stitch ; the altar vestments ; the stoles ; the chalice veils, 
green, white, crimson, purple, each bearing the symbol of the cross in 
varied stitch and design, — were all wrought by the delicate fair hands of 
the Admiral's daughter, and her children, and their friends, as an offering 
of self-consecration and of devotion to the building up of a higher life 
among the Islanders. These, too, brought their gifts, and replaced with 
chandeliers the wax candles which had been set in holes in the book-rests ; 
and, when the sea called away the men, an old lady, rich in humility and 
good works, rang the bell for the weekly services. 

Bishop Medley. Interwoven with the personal life of this church 
was the affection with which it was regarded by " The Most Eminent John 
Medley, D. D., Anglican Bishop of Fredericton, N, B., and Metropolitan 
of Canada, who died in 1892, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. 
It was in this church that he married his second wife, who was a friend of 
Lady Owen's, He seldom failed to visit the Island every year or two, and 



28 

was the trusted confidant of each man, woman, or child, who knew him, 
for his simplicity of life accorded with Island habits, and the people com- 
prehended his singleness of purpose, even if they did not always go to 
church. The names of Mr. and Mrs. Medley often occur in the parish 
records as visitors of the Parish School, with which they seem to have 
been regularly pleased. 

The Deanery. The Parish of Campobello was and is under the 
jurisdiction of the Deanery of St. Andrews. At its meetings, which were 
for purposes of social visitation as well as for church discipline, the Ad- 
miral talked to the Deans if not with them. He knew the law better than 
many of them, and had an eye to business. Earnest and simple are the 
records of these gatherings, as of the one at St. Andrews in 1852, when 
some wished that " all articles necessary to ornament and fitting of places 
of worship should be admitted free of duty " ; yet the movement failed 
of approval lest action on behalf of it might " appear like a move of the 
church for exclusive privilege." 

Church Lands. A later resolve of the Deanery reads as follows : 
" Resolved, that whereas Romanists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and other 
-Sectarists, are busy in successfully seeking from the Government tracts of 
land, to be surveyed for their respective denominations, to be settled by 
their co-religionists, that the Rural Dean communicate with the Lord 
Bishop, and ask his advice whether it may not be wise to seek like tracts 
of land for the settlement of church families as soon as possible, lest there 
be left no lands for the settlement of churchmen." 

Special Prayer. When the Deanery met at Campobello it was 
resolved that, " Owing to the special calling of the Inhabitants of the 
County, that the Bishop draw up a form of Prayer for public service for 
those so exposed, to be used at the discretion of the clergy." 

In 1863, the Deans approved of employing a " Book hawker in the 
dissemination of Church books and tracts in the Province." "The pre- 
vailing sins of our time, especially those by which we are more immediately 
surrounded," was as favorite a topic of discussion in those days of Deanery 
meetings as it is now. 



29 

The Admiral's Stock Company. Among other documents be- 
longing to the period of the Admiral's active life on the Island is a pam- 
phlet printed in London in 1839, entitled "The Campobello Mill and 
Manufacturing Company in New Brunswick, British North America." 

This Company was incorporated June i, 1839, with a capital of 
$400,000 in two thousand shares at $200 each ; interest at 6 per cent, was 
guaranteed on all sums actually paid on the shares, secured on the fixed 
property on the Islands and responsibility of the Company. The 1 'res- 
ident was William Fitz-William Owen. There were also six Directors, 
who were all in official life, with the exception of " John Burnett, Esq., of 
Campobello, Merchant." The property, says the pamphlet, " is valued at 
$100,000, and offers available means of employing five times the capital." 
The returns in four or five years would probably be twenty-five per cent, 
on the capital. The situation of the Island "is extremely commodious for 
commerce with Great Britain, the West Indies, and the United States." 
An early prospectus of the Company's extols the situation, because, by 
order of His Majesty in Council, Campobello was constituted a free Ware- 
housing Port. Jacob Allan, Deputy Surveyor and Commissioner of Crown 
Lands, " certifies that there is now standing a sufficient quantity of spruce 
and pine of the finest growth for saw logs to keep four double saw-mills 
going for the space of forty years ; that is, perpetually. . . . The 
fisheries on the coasts of the Island were let this year by the Company for 
near ^^400, and fish were taken on the coasts to the amount of ;^3,ooo." 
It is also " stated that there is a large quantity of ore about Liberty 
Point." The Company was incorporated "for the purposes of erecting, 
using, and employing all descriptions of mills, mill-dams, fulling and card- 
ing machinery, and will have a decided advantage over any other spot in 
British America." "The population would thus grow rapidly, and the 
Company, having the property of the whole coast, must become the 
medium of all exchanges with all the population, which now amounts to 
six hundred only." 

Alas, the Admiral's dreams have never been realized. The sawmills 
which were built long ago fell into decay. The ores, if there are any, are 



3(t 

still unexplored ; agriculture does not flourish ; the fisheries have de- 
creased, herring are scarce ; and the various changes in the imposition of 
duties have perplexed and thwarted the business activity of the Islanders. 

Admiral's Second flarriage. Year after year the Admiral saw his 
hopes deferred. Lady Owen had died. His daughter, Mrs. Robinson 
Owen, and her children, still lived in the Island home, helping, teaching, 
guiding all around them with kindliness and wisdom. But the Admiral 
spent most of the last five years of his life at St. John, for he married a 
Mrs. Nicholson of that city, whose maiden name was Vennell. 

His Burial. His strange, pioneer, semi-royal, administrative career 
ended in 1857. The boat that bore him back from St. John for the last 
time to his hermitage ran aground; for the great falling tides bade him 
wait, even in the pomp of death, until it was their hour to bear him aloft 
on his oft-trod pier. Men, women, and children, seized lantern, candle, or 
torch, and carried their hermit lord over the rough stones and the narrow 
ways to the cemeter}', where they buried him at eventide, amid the waving 
trees and with the sound of falling tears. 

His memory nestles in the hearts of the children who play around the 
weirs, and who have learned from their grandsires the tales of his jokes, 
his oddities, and his kindnesses. His children and his grandchildren 
stayed in the primitive ancestral home till 188 1, when the Island was sold 
to an American syndicate. As long as any of the Owen family lived there 
they were beneficent rulers of the people, and maintained a courtly stan- 
dard of manners and morals, the grace of which lingers among the 
Islanders. 

The Cannons again. Tradition and fact still invest the Owen 
name with tenderness and homage, as was shown on July 10, 1890, when 
the great-grandson of the Admiral revisited Campobello. Never has the 
old cannon belched forth its volume of sound more loudly than it did for 
Archibald Cochrane, who, as a boy, had often sat astride of it. A 
"middy" on board Her Majesty's flagship Bellerophoji, he came back 
to his ancestral estates, accompanied by Bishop Medley. The boys' 
sunny blue eyes and gentle smile recalled his mother's beauty to the old 



31 

Islanders. The Dominion Hag and the English flag waved from every 
ship in port and from the neighboring houses, to welcome him back. As 
the steamer came in sight, the aged cannon, mounted on four huge logs 
of wood, gave forth its welcome. Each time the cotton had to be rammed 
down, and the cannon had to be propped up. Each time the match and 
the lighted paper were protected by a board held across the breech at 
arm's length ; but the brass piece did its duty, and the people called " well 
done " to it, as if it had been a resuscitated grandsire. The steamer an- 
swered whistle for cannon blast, and the children's laugh was echoed back 
across the water. 

It was dead low tide — and the tide falls twenty feet — when the ven- 
erable bishop came up the long flight of steps, slippery and damp with 
seaweed. Guarded on each side and before and behind, with umbrella in 
his hand for his walking-stick, the metropolitan of eighty-four years 
accepted the unneeded protection which Church of England reverence 
dictated. 

The Qreat=Qrandson. But as the boy ran quickly up the same 
steps, there was not a man who did not rush forward to greet him. The 
band played, while the women crept out from among the pi.les of lum- 
ber and waited for recognition. It came as the boy w^as led from one 
to another, bowing low in his shy, frank manner, cap in hand, to the 
women and girls, who had known him as a child, and shaking hands 
heartily with all the men, young and old. Away off stood two old ladies, 
who blessed the morn which had brought back their young master. Up 
to them he went with pretty timidity, and then, boy-like, hurried off to 
look at the cannon. He put his finger on it with a a loving touch and a 
lingering smile, which to the older ones who saw it told of hidden emotion, 
which, perhaps, he himself scarcely recognized. 

Silence fell as the Metropolitan rose from the chair where he had been 
resting and thanked the people for their greeting to the boy, because of 
his grandparents. The midshipman's eyes shone as they fell on the faces, 
lighted up as they had not been for years, to see that the fair, five-year old 
boy who had left them had grown into the straight-limbed, graceful, 



32 

manly, modest youth, whose greeting was as unaffectedly frank as their 
own. After a while midshipman and bishop stole silently away up to the 
graves of the old Admiral and his wife, of the captain grandfather, and 
the cousin, all of whom had been naval heroes. 

The Old Home. On to the Owen house went the boy and found 
his old haunts, — first, the nursery, then his mother's room, and next his 
grandmother's ; out among the pines to the places where he had played, 
on to the sun-dial and the quarter-deck. All were revisited, with none of 
the sadness which comes in middle life, but with the sure joy of a child 
who has found again his own. He clicked the uncocked pistols of the 
Admiral, and took up the battered, three-cornered hat. 

In the afternoon a game of baseball was played in his honor ; and 
never did his great-grandfather watch more eagerly for victory over the 
pirates than did this descendant watch that the game might be won by 
the Campobello boys. At evening, in the little English Church, where the 
bishop blessed the people and told of Lady Owen's deeds of mercy, the 
boy bent his head over the narrow bookrest, and after the service was 
over he again shook hands with those who had so easily and quickly be- 
come his friends. 

The next day the people gathered again at the wharf. The midship- 
man was a new old friend by this time. Once more the brass-piece 
sounded farewell as he crossed the bay. It had been the playmate of his 
boyhood, his imaginary navy, his cavalry horse, his personal friend. By 
its side he had never wanted to rest on chairs or sofas. Once more he 
turned to look at it as he went down the steps to the water's edge, and 
waved adieu to those who loved him for his mother's sake, with a fond- 
ness and pride and sense of personal ownership unknown in "the States," 
where ancestry counts for but little. 

The old cannon still stands upright in Mr. Batson's store. No one 
would ever steal it again. No one can ever buy it away. From father to 
child it will descend, to tell of the English- American feudalism of a hun- 
dred years ago, and of the happy, bright boy, who found his father's house 
turned into a modern hotel. 



33 

The wonderful loveliness of Campobello can never be taken from it 
by any possessor. It is a beauty partly its own, and partly borrowed from 
the soft rounded headlands, the toy-like islands, the vanishing rivers, and 
the far reaches up the bay, which make the opposite shore. Busy shining 
Eastport, with its New England steeples, spreads itself gently in a long 
line down to the water's edge. 

The Sunsets. At evening the sunset sends its glory over the waters 
and the land, blending all into the wondrous charm of chanjrinc:, dowin-r 
color. The sunsets of the Island have been likened to those of Italian 
skies and Swiss lakes. They need no comparison. They make their 
hours those of exceeding beauty and reverent silence. 

Treat Island. Treat Island is one of the places which enhance the 
enjoyment of Campobello. It lies between Lubec and Eastport, Its first 
owner was Colonel John Allan, who gave it the name of Dudley Island, 
in recognition of his friend, Paul Dudley Sargent, a descendant of the 
Earl of Leicester, As Colonel Allan's revolutionary sentiments compelled 
him to leave Nova Scotia, his American patriotism eventually led to his 
appointment of Superintendent of the Indians. He thus became involved 
in perplexities and hairbreadth escapes. At the end of the war he went 
into business on Dudley Island, and counted among his guests Albert 
Gallatin. Allan was buried on the island in 1805. In i860 two hundred 
of his descendants gathered there, and dedicated to his memory the mar- 
ble column which the antiquarian and the picnic lover alike visit. After 
a while the island began to be known as "Treat's," for a gentleman of 
that name had bought it, and carried on there a large fish-curing business. 
He was also the successful pioneer of the canning industr}'. But with 
the scarcity of herring and multiplicity of duties, the weirs became dis- 
jointed and the houses dilapidated. Alas ! now the land is hired for 
pasturage, and excellent thereof is the milk. 

Benedict Arnold. Among Allan's customers when he lived on the 
island was Benedick Arnold ; for Allan spelt the name with a k, as his 
account book shows. Arnold at that time, though in business at St. John, 
N.B., was living for a short time in Campobello, at Snug Cove. In the 



34 

Centennial year this account book was exhibited at Dennysville, as one of 
its curiosities. In 1786 Arnold bought a new vessel, which he called the 
" Lord Sheffield," and made trading voyages in her along the coast and to 
the West Indies. Once, while cruising in Passamaquoddy Bay, he invited 
Colonel Crane to dine with him on board his vessel. But the Colonel, 
who was a revolutionary veteran, stamping his foot, wounded at the siege 
of New York, furiously replied, " Before I would dine with that traitor I 
would run my sword through his body." Arnold went to England in 1787, 
where he insured his St. John store and stock for ^6,000. The next year 
he came back ; a fire consumed all, and Arnold collected the insurance. 
Two years later Arnold's partner accused him of setting fire to the store. 
Arnold sued for slander, and claimed ^5,000 damages. The jury awarded 
twenty shillings ! When he left St. John his house was sold at public 
auction. " A quantity of household furniture," reads the advertisement : 
" excellent feather beds ; mahogany four-post bedsteads, with furniture ; 
a set of elegant Cabriole chairs covered with blue damask ; sofas and 
curtains to match ; an elegant set of Wedgewood Gilt Ware ; two Tea- 
Table sets of Nankeen china ; Terrestrial Globe ; a double Wheel Jack ; 
a lady's elegant Saddle and Bridle, etc." Yet whoever now owns them 
must be glad that they are not family heirlooms. Auction sales are more 
honorable for some china. 

Smuggling. Whether Arnold was attracted to the Passamaquoddy 
region by its opportunities for smuggling can never be known. But certain 
is it that the embargo law of 1807 had put a stop to foreign trade, and in 
1808 destroyed the coasting trade. Before then it had been easy to carry 
breadstufTs and provisions across the line. Thousands of barrels thus 
reached Eastport ; and many thousands were brought to Campobello and 
Indian Island, at one dollar a barrel. Smuggling began, or, if it did not 
then begin, it increased. Sudden wealth and bad habits kept pace with 
each other. At first the price for smuggling was twelve and one-half cents 
a barrel, which quickly rose to three dollars a barrel. One man is said to 
have earned forty-seven dollars in twenty-four hours. Fogs helped, — 
*' that's why they were made". 



85 

In the war of 1812, Indian Island and Campobello were very busy 
in shipping English goods and wares from the large colonial ports. Neu- 
tral voyages were constantly made. American vessels had a Swedish 
registrar, and went from Sweden to Easlport in three or four hours. Silk, 
wool, cotton, metals, were thus carried up the bays and streams, and 
shipped in wagons to the Penobscot, then to Portland, Boston, etc. 

Provincial trade was peculiar. British vessels, laden with gypsum 
and grindstones, because they came from ports not open to American 
vessels, sailed to the frontier out on the lines, and transferred their cargo 
to American vessels waiting there. Slaves from Norfolk, Virginia, were 
sent to some neutral island, from there transported to an English ship 
again out on the lines, and then carried to the West Indies. 

Rice Island. One of the islands which was cognizant of some of 
the smuggling was Tuttle's, now called Rice Island, after Solomon Rice, 
who kept store there. It is a little round spot of beauty in the chain of 
islands bridged by fallen weirs, between Lubec and Eastport. 

Lubec. Lubec itself owes its existence to the attempt of five citi- 
zens of Eastport to avoid the payment of duty bonds to the British. 
Lubec Point was then only a forest. Though by 18 18 it had become a 
rival of Eastport, it is now but a small town. Yet it is more picturesquely 
situated than almost any other town in New England. Its single steeple 
and its flagstaff dominate the steep hill down which run two grassy streets 
to the water's edge, where stretch out into the Narrows the piers, which 
change their aspect with each rising and falling tide. When the fog sets 
in over the bay, the last point it hides is Lubec steeple. When it lifts, it 
leaves its gay flower gardens damp with a moisture that brightens each 
tiny petal. From the top of Mulholland's Hill, on Campobello, Lubec 
looks like some quaint foreign spot, with streaks of American activity 
across it. 

Out beyond the town is Quoddy Lighthouse, built about 1809. Near 
it is the Life Saving Station. On the left of the hill are the low marshes 
off Lubec, and beyond them the long purple line of Grand Manan. 

There is no more varied excursion than to row over to Lubec, and 



36 

from there to drive through woods and over sandy roads to the lighthouse. 
Then drive back and along the upper shore to North Lubec, where the 
Young Men's Christian Associations have bought land and erected a hotel, 
with the privileges of fair accommodations and the enthusiasm of camp- 
meetings. At sunset take the Lubec Ferry to Campobello. There is so 
much to se^ in each place, and so many hills for the horse to walk up, 
that it is better to take two separate days for these drives. 

Eastport. Another favorite pastime with the summer visitor is to 
row across to Eastport. Jt is the great shopping place, not only of Campo- 
bello, but of its own county. Most excellent and tasteful are its shops, 
whose proprietors have a courtesy of manner which city merchants might 
well emulate. The drives from Eastport are pleasant, each one different 
from the other. Go along the water up to Pleasant Point, where a few 
Indians live under the care of the kindly sisters of the Catholic Church, 
and where Rev. John Cheverus once visited, or over to Pembroke with its 
mills, and up and down long hills. 

rieddy Bemps. Best of all is it to forsake the viands of the hotels, 
drive up to Meddy Bemps, and camp there for two or three days ; catch 
what early fish you can, bass and pickerel ; eat as big and as sweet blue- 
berries as ever grow ; pull up the water lilies by their long stems ; buy 
rag mats ; and enjoy the quiet and beauty of the lake and its shores. 

The North Road. On Campobello itself the most lonesome and 
picturesque drive is that along the North Road, over stony and narrow 
ways, up rough hills, and by beaches which seem close to the houses. 
The view framed by the New Brunswick hills is ever changing, while the 
St. Croix River extends off into an unrimmed distance. From Head 
Harbor, lines of fishing boats, brilliant with the red flannel shirts of the 
men, stretch out into the bay. Eastport seems near and far. Part of the 
North Road is gay with gardens, for dearly do the Islanders love their 
dahlias, their princely flowers, and all the lesser floral dignitaries. Here 
stands the Baptist Church, against which the lambs crouch as if in sacri- 
ficial symbol. Far beyond it is Mallock's Beach, sentinelled by high cliffs, 
reverenced for generations as the baptismal beach. Then come the deso- 



87 

late, low peaks of bare, purple rock, which shut out all but gloom, when 
suddenly appear the bright, laughing waters of Havre de Lutre — Harbor 
of the Otter — and its opposite wooded shores, leading to Head Habor. 
Let your horse find his own way homeward, and climb home yourself 
along the shores of Havre de Lutre, which will bring you out at the head 
of the harbor, near where William Owen first settled. 

Head Harbor. The longest drive on the Island is to Head Harbor, 
— the Queen's Highway, as it is called, — past Cold Spring, Cranberry 
and Bunker Hills. Climb both, and you will never forget the view. Drive 
on past Conroy's Bridge, the schoolhouses, the church, Wilson's settle- 
ment (where do not fail to buy sticks of checkerberry candy), up and 
down the hills to Head Harbor River (where, report says, the Admiral 
once built a brig), to Head Harbor Beach, and there picnic. Then, re- 
freshed by a lunch, which tastes better in the open air than indoors, walk 
over to the Fog Horn House, and, if the tide is right, go down a rocky 
hill, across a rocky ford, up a short iron ladder and on to Head Harbor 
Lighthouse. Never start on any excursion at Campobello until you have 
adjusted your hours to the tides, or else your plans will fail. 

Mill Cove. This waiting upon the tide is of special importance at 
Mill Cove, the road to which branches off from Head Harbor road. 
There is no place on the Island equal to this for surprises. When the 
fog is "in" half of it is non-existent, as it were. At high tide you see 
an island which you cannot reach by carriage. At low tide you urge your 
horse up a short, pebbly beach, down into the water, and up on to an 
island. By permission of its occupant, you drive through his land out 
into a broad green field, with the Bay of Fundy fronting you, and the 
Wolves looking hopelessly lonely. Give a whole day to the weird and 
sunny beauty of the cove and its nooks. 

Nancy Head. Between Mill and Schooner Coves are the White 
Rocks and Nancy Head, so called from a ship that was wrecked there. 

Schooner Cove. Schooner Cove is another surprise, but a single 
one. After you have reached it, put on your rubbers and take the mile 
walk to the left along the cliffs. Ten years ago it was the most solemn 



trail that you could follow. Now, as civilization has come nearer, and 
sunlight has penetrated it, the grey moss hangs less heavily from the close 
branches, leafless even in summer, while the water dashes up over the 
rocks on the other side of the narrow path. On the right of the cove go 
with care, and at your peril, over the headlands, along the coves, and in 
through the almost untrodden forest to Herring Cove. 

Here is the longest beach in Campobello, with curiously tinted and 
marked pebbles. It is but a mile through the woods, starting from the 
Tyn-Y-Coed, and is the favorite walk and drive of all those who like 
smooth and shady roads and an air laden with " spicy fragrance." On 
the left is Eastern Head, never to be forgotten as a place of exploration, 
with wonderful views from its points and down its ravines. 

Herring Cove. A unique pleasure, which, though obtained by 
driving, cannot properly be counted among the drives, is the visit at 
night to Herring Cove, to see the men "driving the herring." Each 
wherry has a ball of cotton wool, or a roll of bark, on a stick saturated 
with kerosene, or else it is put into an iron cradle fastened to an iron pole. 
As the cotton or bark burns, the moving boats look like a fitful procession 
of lights. The brightness attracts the herring, and, as one man rows, 
while another " drives," the nets are hauled up full of wriggling, shining 
fish. 

Lake Glen Severn, so called after the Owen place in Wales, is separ- 
ated by a short bridge from the high beach before it slopes down to the 
water. 

Meadow Brook Cove. Beyond Herring Cove is Meadow Brook 
Cove, an ideal place for the scene of a summer idyl. Into it runs a tiny 
brook which starts somewhere near the head of Havre de Lutre, marking 
the division which once took place in the Island, according to geologists. 
The ruins of a stone wall which runs along the brook are no longer sup- 
posed to have been built by the Northmen, for the Admiral erected it as 
part of his scheme in draining the meadow. 

Branching off from the Herring Cove Road is the Fitz- William road, 
where many lots have been sold, and also the road to Raccoon Beach. 



39 

This drive is along another wonderful tangle of forest skirted by beaches. 
It leads to Liberty Point, the cable line from Welsh Pool to Grand Manan 
passing by it, on to Skillet Cove, where there is a split rock, on again to 
Owen Head, desolate and vengeful in its height, down to Chalybeate 
Spring, — a fortune for the future, — across beaches too rough for a single 
team with four people, to Cranberry Point, and back to where you started. 
At Deep Cove, near the Point, is a rock bearing pronounced glacial marks. 
Take the drive at low tide, and feel its gloom, with the fog drifting across 
your face. Take it at high tide, on a sunny morning, and feel its cheer- 
fulness. 

Once more drive down to the Narrows, past the cottages ; stop at 
Friar's Head, whose Indian name was Skedapsis, the Stone Manikin. 
Go to the pagoda-like structure on top of the hill, climb down its side, 
and at low tide go walk between the Friar and the hill ; then at high tide 
wonder how you ever did it. Retrace your steps. Go along the road, 
past Snug Cove and the schoolhouse, till you come to the Narrows, where 
runs the swift current which only the experienced boatman can cross in 
his flat-bottomed boat, that carries alike the passenger or his horse, or 
brings over from Lubec the funeral hearse. 

Yet these are not all the drives. Subdivisions of them lead you into 
marshes, plains, and woods, though they are preferable as bridle paths or 
walks. They began as cow-paths, and may end as country roads. Ad- 
ventures can still be sought over dangerous cliffs. It is more than easy 
to get lost in the woods. Still, no matter where you go, you cannot help 
coming out somewhere near water and a fisherman's hut; for Campobello, 
— in Indian dialect Ebauhnit, signifying by or near the mainland, — having 
an area of twenty square miles, and a circumference of twenty-five miles, 
is ten miles long and two to three miles wide. Remember in all these 
drives to turn to the left, and when you walk not to be afraid of cows. 

Perhaps it is the water excursions which render Campobello most 
famous. Among these is the sail to St. Andrews, which offers modern 
Wedgewood ware for sale, and where is the far-famed Algonquin Hotel 
and Cobscook Mountain. The West Isles and Le Tete Canal make an- 



■V) 

other pleasant sail. To go around the Island on a calm day is delightful. 
Very exquisite in its limited beauty is the sail up St. George's River, the 
trees on either side arching their branches over the little steamer. St. 
George's Falls and the stone quarry should also be visited on landing at 
the pier. 

Johnson's Bay. For a short outing, row across Friar's Bay to 
Johnson's Bay ; climb the little hill to the pleasant, neat, and hospitable 
farm-house ; go through a grove to the wooden look-out, and clamber up- 
wards. For wondrous beauty of beach and land-locked bay, of great 
headlands and brown hay-cocks, of the mystery of nature's secretiveness 
in South Bay, the view is unsurpassed. 

South Bay. Then, inspired by its loveliness, come home to the 
hotel, engage Tomar and his canoes, paddle across the wide bay, and in 
and out of the islands and crannies of South Bay, the happiest, sunniest, 
cosiest bay on the Maine coast. Go through the canal at high tide ; 
paddle everywhere around till the tide turns, and you can pass back 
through this narrow and again water-filled canal into Friar's Bay, the 
cottages at Campobello serving as guide in steering the homeward course. 

The Tides. But truly there never is any guide among the tides and 
currents setting in from the different islands and headlands save that of 
correct knowledge of their ways. To lose an oar in these waters might 
mean drifting for hours ; and then if the fog sets in ! That fog, which is 
the basis of conversation on first acquaintance, the spoiler of picnics, and 
the promoter of a beauty of landscape so infinite and varied that one 
only wonders how any summer place can be without it. 

Dennysville. Yet, if any one chances to feel that he is too much a 
part of the fog in a row-boat, take the little steamer to Dennysville. The 
ebb and flow along the coast in this region is so marked, that in going up 
the Denny River the pilot carefully guides the steamer through the whirl- 
pools and maelstroms, which are dangerous only in winter. The river 
grows very narrow, till at its source it seems to be set in meadow lands, 
along which one wanders, through the quiet village roads, — for the town 
is fifty miles from any railroad, — trying to comprehend why anybody 



41 

should forsake a spot so soothing to the spirit and so simple in its love- 
liness for the confusion of city life. 

Grand Manan. Of all the water excursions that to Grand Manan 
is by far the most rich in reward. The best way is to take the steamer 
Flushing, which runs three times a week ffom Campobello to Grand 
Manan, and spend two nights and one day there, — longer, if you wish. 
There is little fear of sea-sickness on board the big steamer. The extra- 
ordinary cliffs and the sixteen-mile drive to Southern Head are scenes 
never to be forgotten, but which beggar words to describe. The sternness 
of nature stands here revealed, and the moans of the sea-gulls tell of even 
their need of sympathy. 

The Friar. Beside these cliffs the noted one of the Friar at Campo- 
bello seems comparatively short ; yet it is the prominent rock of the Island 
as one approaches it, and its importance is increased by the legendary 
lore that has gathered around it. Mr. Charles G. Leland tells the story 
in this wise : — 

" Once there was a young Indian who had married a wife of great 
beauty, and they were attached to each other by a wonderful love. They 
lived together on the headland which rises so boldly and beautifully above 
the so-called Friar. Unfortunately her parents lived with the young mar- 
ried couple, and acted as though they were still entitled to all control over 
her. One summer the elder couple wished to go up the St. John River, 
while the young man was determined to remain on Passamaquoddy Bay. 
Then the parents bade the daughter to come with them, happen what 
might. She wished to obey her husband, yet greatly feared her father, 
and was in dire distress. Now the young man grew desperate. He fore- 
saw that he must either yield to the parents — which all his Indian stub- 
bornness and sense of dignity forbade — or else lose his wife. Now, he 
was ni'teuiin, and, thinking that magic could aid him, did all he could to 
increase his supernatural power. Then, feeling himself strong, he said to 
his wife one morning, 'Sit here until 1 return.' She said, 'I will,' and 
obeyed. But no sooner was she seated than the vt'teulin spell began to 
work, and she, still as death, soon hardened into stone. Going to the 



42 

point of land directly opposite, over the bay, the husband called his 
friends, with his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and told them that he 
was determined never to part from his wife nor to lose sight of her for 
an instant to the end of time, and yet withal they would never quit Passa- 
maquoddy. On being asked sneeringly by his wife's father how he would 
effect this, he said : ' Look across the water. There sits your daughter, 
and she will never move. Here am I gazing on her. Farewell ! ' And 
as he spoke the hue of stone came over his face, and in a few minutes he 
was a rock. And there they stood for ages, until, some years ago, several 
fishermen, prompted by the spirit which moves the Anglo-Saxon every- 
where to wantonly destroy, rolled the husband with great efifort into the 
bay. As for the bride, she still exists as the Friar; although she has long 
been a favorite object for artillery practice by both English and American 
vandal captains, who have thus far, however, only succeeded in knocking 
off her head." 

Tomar. Many an Indian legend of doubtful authority still clings 
to various points on the Island ; yet only the Indians themselves are per- 
sistent and real. Each summer day they bring their baskets for sale. 
Tomar, at one time governor of his tribe, on a small salary with large 
work to do, is one of the few thoroughbred Indians who still live in this 
region. He is a man of integrity, skill, and gentleness. Each visitor is 
eager to gain his companionship and guidance in his canoe, as he paddles 
into nooks where one less experienced might hesitate to penetrate. Greater 
than his skill in paddling is Tomar's ingenuity in scraping pictures on birch 
bark symbolical of Indian life. 

His Tribe. The Passamaquoddy Indians, or Openangoes, were a 
branch of the Etechemin nation, and apparently of comparatively recent 
origin. Their earliest village near Campobello was at Joe's Point, near 
St. Andrews. The majority of the remnants of the tribe are found at 
Pleasant Point, near Eastport, at Peter Dana's Point, near Princeton, and 
at The Camps, on the border of Calais. Their language is fast dying 
out ; but their traditions and customs have been carefully studied and 
collected largely by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, and also by 



43 

Professor J. Walter Fewkes, who has taken down on the wax cylinders 
of the phonograph many of their songs and stories. 

The following original poem by one of the tribe was written for a 
sale that was held on August, 1883, for the benefit of a new rectory on 
the Island, in which Miss Lucy Derby was interested, and through whose 
efforts the rectory was built, the Company giving the land. 

A^WES-WlHTO-lWAGEj^. 

Amwezik 'klithwon ya skedabe zogel ; 

Skedap tatchuwi melan kekouse kiziolgweh. 

Ulzee-ik 'lee madjhe goltook kizosook ; 

Tatchuuwi tewebn'm nenwel kthlee-tahazoo wagenen woolsum'kik. 

Piyemee absegekook beskwaswesuk tchicook 

Pemee woolip p'setawkqu'm'see you wen. 

P'skedali tatchuwe oolazoo weeahl m'pseeoo-wenil. 

Amwess ooktee-in aboozek ; 

Uppes kootee-in hedlegit; 

Beskwas'wess lookquem hahze ; 

Nojeemeeko gemit chooiwigeou : 

Weejokegem wee you'h. 

Piel John Gabriel kweezee-toon yoot lin to wagiin. 

Kee zee skee jin wih tun ; 

Whu-titli keezeetoon Ebawg'hwit, ^ 

We jee kissi tahzik wenoch chigwam. 

N'paowlin kweezee Iglesmani tun. 

THE SOJVIG OF THE BEES. 

The bees make honey for man ; 

Man should give something to God. 

The trees lift their tops to the sun ; 

We should lift up our hearts to our father. 

The smallest flower in the forest 

Gives out a perfume for all. 

Man should do good unto all men. 

The bee has a tree (for a home) ; 

The tree has a place to grow ; 



44 

The flower has a stem ; 
The clergyman must have a house : 
May this song help it. 
Peter John Gabriel made this song. 
He made it in Indian ; 

lie made it in Campobello (the island by the shore), 
To help to build the house. 
* N'povv-o-lin (the scholar, or man learned in mysteries) put it into English. 

The Fenians. Among the Islanders are many whom it is delightful 
to know. They are all interested in affairs of church, school, and state, 
and eager for the future commercial prosperity of the Island. Excitement 
in local politics often runs high, but only once — in 1886 — has there been 
resort to arms. Then the Fenians were at Eastport and Lubec. From 
the latter place some came over to low water mark, but were driven back 
" by the shine of the rifles " ; for Captain Luke Byron, with one hundred 
and fifty Islanders, duly equipped, was stationed at the Narrows, Havre 
de Lutre, and Wilson's Beach. Though the Fenians were at Eastport but 
little more than a month, the Campobello committee of safety remained 
on guard three months. But when an English man-of-war came into the 
harbor, the Fenians, to avoid capture, sank their own vessel off the Nar- 
rows, beyond the lighthouse, and escaped themselves towards Machias. 

Climate. The summer climate of Campobello is cool and delight 
ful, the thermometer ranging between fifty-five and seventy-five degrees ; 
so one can be outdoors all day long without becoming oppressed by the 
heat. The extensive forests of balsamic firs seem to affect the atmosphere, 
soothing and invigorating the visitor by day, and inviting sleep by night. 

Water. The greater part of the Island is fertile. The common 
field and garden plants and vegetables grow abundantly, while the deep 
layer of drift gravel affords excellent well water at almost all points. The 
water supply for the hotels and cottages is, however, brought in pipes from 
distant springs, and filters itself by passing through a natural reservoir of 
sand. 



* Mr. Charles G. Leland. 



Lirf-C.. 



45 

Soil. The soil consists of a light clayey loam. " The general sur- 
face of the Island is marked by the sharply curved contours characteristic 
of all glaciated regions, where the rocks are of unequal hardness covered 
over by a deep bed of soil composed of the drift waste. This soil con- 
sists of a light clayey loam of rather remarkable fertility," — says Professor 
Shaler. " The greater part of the trees are evergreen, belonging to two 
species of fir and two of spruce. Scattered among them are the common 
species of birch, poplar, the common red beech, and in open swampy 
places the alder," which spreads with amazing rapidity. 

Flowers. Wild Roses, varying in color from the palest pink to an 
almost magenta red, cover whole fields with their frail beauty. In the 
grass and round the ledges about Friar's Head the Campanula droops its 
blue bell. The Blue Iris skirts the borders of Lake Glen Severn. The 
Field Daisy, Sea-side Buttercup, the Marsh Pea, the Fall Dandelion, and 
the Sheep Laurel, spread themselves over the pastures in processions of 
color. The Wood Oxalis, its white petals veined with pink, and the Linnaea 
or Twinflower, are found half concealed beneath the underbrush of the 
woods. Among the rarer tlowers of the Island is the Alpine Cloud Berry, 
or Amber Colored Raspberry, found on the Alpine summits of the White 
Mountains and on the Northeast Coast, which is the same as the Nor- 
wegian species. The Corn Chamomile, a rare weed, and the Wild Chamo- 
mile, both of which are naturalized from Europe, are found here, but chiefly 
around Eastport. The aromatic Wintergreen is the real Checkerberry, in 
Maine called the Trory Plum. The lovely Eyebright is found only along 
the coast of Maine and Canada ; its Alpine form is rare. There are many 
varieties of Orchids, Asters, and Goldenrod, of Primroses, Honeysuckle, 
Heath, and of Lilies, from the Trillium or Trinity Flower to the two-leaved 
Solomon's Seal. 

The wild strawberry in July, and the blueberries and raspberries in 
August, and the small cranberry in September, give occupation to the 
children, whose prices for berries are variable. 

In the waters around the Island there " is a richer animal and vege- 
table life than is found along any other part of our shore." 



46 

Dispute about Names of Rivers. These waters have been the 
subject of constant litigation from early days. According to the oldest 
maps, the present St. Croix River was called Magaguadavic, and the 
Schoodic River, the Passamaquoddy ; a name applied not alone to that 
River, but to the bays of Schoodick, St. Andrews, Cobscook, the waters 
from around Head Harbor (Campobello), to West Quoddj', etc., on ac- 
count of the great number of pollock taken in these waters. The Maga- 
guadavic received its present name of St. Croix from a cross erected there 
by the French, before there were any English settlers in its neighborhood. 
The dispute concerning the identity of these rivers, interesting as an his- 
torical matter, has not the political importance which attaches to the 
settlement of the boundary line between the American and English pos- 
sessions. 

Boundary Line. This line goes out "between Deer Island and 
Campobello, so as to give the United States equal access through the main 
channel to the sea, and then remands Campobello into British territory," 
for, by the treaty of 1783, all islands heretofore within the jurisdiction of 
Nova Scotia were to remain British territory. 

The Owen. All this now is a matter of almost antiquarian concern, 
the present interest centering in the development of the Island as a sum- 
mer resort. In 1881 it was purchased of the Owen heirs by a few New 
York and Boston gentlemen, who organized the Campobello Land Com- 
pany. The Owen was at once built upon the site of Admiral Owen's 
private domain. Part of this dwelling house was moved across the 
gravelled walk to serve as an office for the Company and in it were placed 
the Owen relics. The rest of the house was left unaltered, the lower 
rooms serving as hotel offices and the upper ones as chambers. The 
following year a larger dining room for the hotel was constructed, William 
G. Preston being employed as architect of the whole structure. 

Tyn=Y=Coed. In 1882 the Tyn-Y-Coed was opened, in 1883 the 
Tyn-Y-Maes, both erected under the supervision of Cummings and Sears, 
of Boston. 



47 

Cottages. The first cottages which were finished in 18S4 were 
those of James Roosvelt, Esq., of New York, and Samuel Wells, Esq., 
of Boston. Dr. Russell Sturgis, of iJoston, Travers Cochran, Esq., of 
Philadelphia, Alexander Porter, Esq., and Gorham Hubbard, Esq., of 
Boston, Alfred Pell, Esq., of New York, have each successively built 
summer residences on the Island. 

In 1892 The Owen and its adjacent land and Man-of-War Neck were 
sold to some Boston gentlemen, who intend to manage the Owen as a 
summer hotel. 

Each year the place becomes better known, but those who early made 
it their summer home have stamped upon it, it is hoped, that simplicity in 
manner of living which will prevent it from ever becoming either a place 
for picnics or a fashionable resort. It can never lose the picturesque 
beauty and the exhilarating climate which make it a most beautiful sum- 
mer sojurn from May to November, for the autumn months are as glorious 
in clearness of atmosphere as the early summer months are lovely in their 
softness of verdure and coloring, while the sunsets always kindle the im- 
agination into visions of the future. 



3 1905 



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